Missouri Home Maker's Conference. 



581 



The preceding report card will be of great assistance in intro- 

 ducing home economics into the rural schools. 



Interior of Camp Branch school. 



COOKING OF VEGETABLES. 



(Louise Stanley, Ph. D., department of home economics, University of Missouri.) 



In the cooking of vegetables we have two purposes in view, 

 the hydrolyzing of the starch and the softening of the cellulose. 

 Those vegetables which have no starch and not excessively 

 large amounts of cellulose can be eaten raw. The small boy 

 may eat raw sweet potato in spite of the raw starch present, 

 but he usually suffers from indigestion as a result. Few of us 

 would care to eat a raw beet even though there is no starch 

 present, for in this case the amount of cellulose is so great as to 

 render it unpalatable and indigestible. Both the hydrolyzing 

 of the starch and the softening of the cellulose require moist 

 heat. 



In cooking vegetables we should be concerned not only 

 with increasing the digestibility, but also the palatability of the 

 vegetables. This is done by judicious seasoning and combina- 

 tion of flavors, and especially by preserving and keeping as far 



